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* About
* Sponsorships
* Jason Snell
* Dan Moren
* Six Colors Hat
* Six Colors Shirt
* Archive
* Sign In
* Membership
* Topics
* 2023 OS updates
* iOS 17
* macOS Sonoma
* iPadOS 17
* Reviews
* Apple Report Card
* WWDC 2023
* Automation
* Podcasting
* E-readers
* Apple Photos
* 20 Macs for 2020

THIS WEEK'S SPONSOR

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BY JASON SNELL

March 28, 2024 9:19 AM PT

APPLE’S IMMERSIVE MLS HIGHLIGHT REEL DEBUTS LATER TODAY

Apple announced today that the first Apple Immersive Video documentary for
Vision Pro, featuring highlights from last year’s MLS playoffs, will debut
tonight (March 28) at 6 p.m. Pacific.

The video format has previously only been seen in a handful shorts in the TV app
on the Vision Pro. This new film will be similarly short, running about five
minutes long, and will be free to all Vision Pro users.

I’m excited to see the finished product—all of Apple’s immersive videos have
been pretty amazing—but I have to point out that this five-minute highlight
packages is being released 110 days after last year’s MLS Cup Final. That’s not
great turnaround time. If immersive video for sports is going to be a thing,
turnaround is going to need to be a lot faster.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

VIDEO

March 27, 2024 2:11 PM PT

■ MAC 40

MARCH BACKSTAGE ZOOM: IPAD, VISION PRO, AND AI

We got together with Backstage pass members live on Zoom earlier today to
discuss all sorts of stuff, including iPad rumors, Vision Pro, and A.I.…

THIS VIDEO IS FOR MORE COLORS AND BACKSTAGE PASS MEMBERS ONLY.

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THE REBOUND 488: I’VE ALREADY FORGOTTEN WHAT WE WERE TALKING ABOUT

All things begin with the Department of Justice.

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CLOCKWISE 547: CHAOS???

Our use of tethering for Internet, Mac buying advice, our notification styles,
and the TikTok ban.

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BY JASON SNELL FOR MACWORLD

March 27, 2024 10:00 AM PT

WHO WINS WHEN REGULATORS TAKE ON APPLE?

Titans are clashing. Big tech companies, including Apple, are facing legal
challenges from government entities like the European Commission and the U.S.
Department of Justice. Battle lines are being drawn. Compromises are being
floated. Hours are being billed by pricey law firms.

But what does it all mean for the regular people who live in regions governed by
these entities and use products made by those tech giants? Is this something
that will change how we use our personal technology, or will it end up meaning a
whole lot of nothing? What about the smaller developers who create innovative
apps but can’t afford to employ giant law firms or take out million-euro lines
of credit at their local bank?

Continue reading on Macworld ↦

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

BY DAN MOREN

March 26, 2024 10:19 AM PT

APPLE ANNOUNCES WWDC 2024 TAKES PLACE JUNE 10-14

It’s that time of year, when young developers’ fancies turn to thoughts of
platform updates. Probably because Apple has announced the dates for its 2024
Worldwide Developers Conference, which will take place between June 10 and 14.

As with last year, the event will happen both online and in person with a
special “all-day event” taking place at Apple Park on Monday, June 10. Those in
attendance will be able to watch the keynote—presumably led by CEO Tim Cook—at
Apple Park, as well as meet with Apple team members, and join in for some
“special activities.” Those interested in participating in person can apply for
one of the limited slots available.

Apple’s also once again offering a separate track for students via the Swift
Student Challenge; those who have applied will be notified on March 28, and will
then be able to apply to join the festivities at Apple Park.

Rumor has it that this year’s platform updates will be amongst the biggest in
some time, including a big push in generative AI. But Apple will also be holding
the event against the backdrop of challenges from its recent legal troubles in
both the European Union and the US.

[Dan Moren is the East Coast Bureau Chief of Six Colors. You can find him on
Mastodon at @dmoren@zeppelin.flights or reach him by email at dan@sixcolors.com.
His latest novel, the supernatural detective story All Souls Lost, is out now.]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

BY GLENN FLEISHMAN

March 25, 2024 4:46 PM PT

A DISK SO FULL, IT COULDN’T BE RESTORED

My younger child’s MacBook Pro was unsalvageably full. Only a complete wipe
would suffice—and then Time Machine failed us.

I love my children, but they do sometimes forget what I do for a living: answer
questions and write books about the most troubling problems people have with
their Macs, iPhones, and iPads. But when something goes truly wrong, they
suddenly remember, “Hey, Dad might know how to fix it!”

So it happened that my younger asked for my help when their M2 MacBook Pro’s
storage filled up while they were downloading a (legitimate, purchased) game
using Steam. No problem! I could just empty the trash. Nope, they tried that.
Well, what about finding some caches and…nope. I could just go into the Terminal
and…ok, that didn’t work either.

Turned out, my kid had managed a neat trick, though they were not alone: they
had filled macOS’s startup volume storage so full that the operating system was
incapable of deleting files in any fashion. Instead of halting the massive Steam
download when the drive became disastrously full, macOS continued to write files
until there was just 41K free on the drive.

I don’t know quite what happened. They didn’t realize their terabyte SSD was
quite so filled, as they keep most of their useful files in the cloud. It was
likely…er, perfectly legitimate video files. Yeah, I’m sure there was no problem
with the copyright there. But they weren’t concerned about retaining them. They
just wanted their computer to work again!

I have a theory about what happened. Due to our gigabit Internet connection and
the size of the Steam file, macOS outstripped its ability to throttle filling
storage because it was also making a local Time Machine snapshot. The Steam file
appeared monolithic to me—one giant file—but clearly not to Time Machine. macOS
keeps these snapshots to provide local backups for the last 24 hours even while
it’s copying files to an external or networked Time Machine destination. I don’t
think macOS tracks these snapshots well, and I suspect a collision of live files
on disk with the specially created snapshots.

I went through a succession of file deletion attempts, relying on my own
knowledge and searching for similar situations in online forums:

* Empty Trash: Emptying the Trash via the Finder a big “no” (File > Empty
Trash). “The operation can’t be completed because the disk is full.” Yes,
macOS, I’m already aware of this.
* Terminal: While Terminal would launch, using the standard Unix rm command
resulted in a similar error: “No space left on device.” All rm alternatives,
like using the find command to search for very large unneeded files and
adding the -exec option to run the rm command, failed too. Terminal was a
bust.
* Disk Utility: Disk Utility shows Time Machine snapshots on APFS startup
volumes, and you can typically select and delete these snapshots, which
occupy only the amount of storage space required to contain the differences
from the previous snapshot. That failed with a “no space left” error as well.

It was time to restart to see if it would clear caches. Unfortunately,
restarting left the Mac unable to start up at all. No matter what I tried, it
would reach about halfway through the progress bar before failing.

I shifted to recoveryOS, Apple’s somewhat new name for the special disk
partition in macOS that lets you run operations on the main startup volume while
it’s not mounted, including Disk Utility repairs and reinstallation. From there,
I hit the wall as well, as Terminal commands continued to fail with the same
error.

I restarted again to access the Apple silicon Share Disk option to mount my
kid’s drive on one of my Macs, hoping that over Samba (the disk-sharing
protocol), I’d be able to force a deletion. No dice.

At this point, I shifted to stronger medicine. I had a series of Time Machine
backups of their drive, including one from the previous evening, and they
weren’t terribly concerned about losing data, as they have most things they care
about in some kind of cloud storage. Here’s where things went pear-shaped in an
entirely different direction.

First, I erased the drive and used macOS Recovery to reinstall Ventura, the
native system with which the MacBook Pro had shipped. I then used Migration
Assistant at macOS startup to access the networked Time Machine backup. In
choosing what files to restore, I unchecked a number to ensure there would be
plenty of storage. My kid had a lot of things they could delete, too, they said,
and I could give them the Time Machine backup as a mountable drive if they
needed access to files that weren’t restored later.

Halfway through, Ventura stalled and wouldn’t resume. I decided to upgrade to
Sonoma, the version of macOS that was running at the time the Mac filled its
drive. That worked fine—but the upgrade took the Mac to version 14.4, and my kid
had had 14.3.1 installed. When I attempted to restore directly at startup, I was
told the version different wouldn’t allow it. Now what?

I completed a basic Sonoma user account setup and then ran Migration Assistant.
It found the networked Mac on which I manage Time Machine backups and recognized
it. However, it refused to mount my child’s backup volume. No matter what I did,
“Mount failed” appeared. Digging around in forums, I found that Sonoma has
broken the SMB/Samba-based networking mount procedure for Time Machine restores,
and no one had found a solution. This appears to still be the case in 14.4.

Retrieving a backup image for restoration.

Because my younger only needed their apps and certain files, we both gave up at
that point. I copied their Time Machine backup onto an external 1 TB SSD through
this straightforward method:

1. On my Mac, which handles networked backups, I double-clicked the disk image
for their computer and then entered their Time Machine volume password. (I
always set a networked password for Time Machine volumes.)
2. I found the disk icon with the latest timestamp and copied this to an empty
1 TB drive.
3. Ejecting it from my Mac, I connected it to their stub account on their
MacBook Pro and copied over the necessary files, including the contents of
most of their home directory folders, excluding some large downloads and
unneeded (ahem) video files.

I gave them the drive so that they could restore anything else they needed if it
were missing, and we’ll probably keep it on hand for a while to make sure
nothing is missing.

This put them back in business, but I missed two tricks that I could have tried
to make things easier:

* I could have unmounted the Time Machine backup drive from my computer I use
for other computers on the network. (I have a separate drive I use for local
Time Machine backups from that computer’s startup volume.) Then I could have
connected that directly to my kid’s computer and it likely would have become
available as a Migration Assistant starting point.
* Failing that, I could have copied the virtual disk from the Time Machine disk
image I mounted on my Mac of their backup so that the external 1 TB drive I
was transferring “looked” like a Mac source volume. I’m not sure if this
would have worked, but I didn’t try it. Then, I could have potentially
restored directly from it using Migration Assistant.

I’m sorry I didn’t try the above, but I had already invested a cumulative couple
of hours of my time and over a day of effort while my kid was unconcerned about
a perfect directory-to-directory recovery.

I hate to think what people without decades of Mac experience do when confronted
with systemic, cascading failures like this when I felt helpless despite what I
thought I knew and all the answers I searched for and found on forums.

[If you liked this story, consider backing Glenn’s latest Kickstarter project,
How Comics Were Made: a Visual History of Printing Cartoons.]

[Glenn Fleishman is a Macworld contributor, Jeopardy champion, and serial
Kickstarterer. He's currently working on the book How Comics Were Made.]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

UPGRADE 505: ABOLISH DRAFTS: THE 2024 IPAD DRAFT

The U.S. Department of Justice joins the European Commission in contributing to
Apple’s legal troubles; and in a surprise, pre-emptive move, we attempt to
predict the future of the iPad via a draft!

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BY DAN MOREN

March 25, 2024 7:01 AM PT

EC INVESTIGATES APPLE AND OTHER TECH GATEKEEPERS OVER DMA COMPLIANCE

Europe’s Digital Markets Act continues to be the gift that keeps on giving—a
gift Apple probably wishes it could return. The European Commission today
announced that it was opening a slew of investigations into big tech companies
over their non-compliance with the DMA, including Alphabet, Meta, and Apple.

Apple, in particular, has found itself in the crosshairs for three different
areas. First, that the company may have put too many restrictions on developers
who want to steer customers outside of the App Store. (Apple recently relaxed
those rules, including ditching mandatory design templates.)

Secondly, in the area of user choice, the EC is concerned Apple has not done
enough to allow users to choose what software is installed on their phone. That
includes the ability to uninstall built-in apps, change default app settings,
and provide screens allowing users to choose between alternatives. The EC’s
announcement particularly calls out the browser choice screen, though it doesn’t
specifically details its concerns beyond saying it “may be preventing users from
truly exercising their choice of services within the Apple ecosystem.” The
screen currently shows up when users first launch Safari on iOS and provides a
list of the eleven most popular browsers in the region, in random order.
However, Apple does impose some restrictions on what it takes to be included in
that list, including a requirement that the app has been downloaded 5000 times
in the EU over the past calendar year.

Finally, and perhaps most contentiously, the EC says that it is investigating
the fee structure of Apple’s new business model in the EU, saying that it “may
be defeating the purpose of its obligations under Article 6(4) of the DMA.” That
decision was hinted at this past week by Margrethe Vestager, the executive vice
president in charge of competition policy, when she said in an interview with
Reuters “if the new Apple fee structure will de facto not make it in any way
attractive to use the benefits of the DMA. That kind of thing is what we will be
investigating.” This also comes on the heels of an EU-Apple workshop about the
DMA last week, during which developer and AltStore proprietor Riley Testut asked
Apple representatives how they would protect creators of free apps if those apps
went viral, putting them on the hook for Apple’s new Core Technology Fee.
Apple’s Kyle Andeer said the company was likewise concerned and that it was
“something we’re working on,” though no further information has been provided.

These investigations aren’t going to be speedy: the EC says they will be
concluded within 12 months, at which point the body will tell the companies what
changes if any need to be made. The companies may also be subject to fines of up
to 10 percent of annual global revenue, or 20 percent in cases of “repeated
infringement.”

Apple, for its part, said in a statement provided to several outlets, including
The Verge: “We’re confident our plan complies with the DMA, and we’ll continue
to constructively engage with the European Commission as they conduct their
investigations.”

DAN’S TAKE

The DMA and the EC are clearly proving to be a thorn in Apple’s side. Despite
the company trying to get ahead of these kinds of issues, apparently its
attempts to do the minimum needed to comply weren’t quite enough. The specific
issues over anti-steering policies and user choice are certainly annoyances, but
seem like issues that can be tweaked by Apple without serious impacts to the
company.

But the big risk here is the investigation into the fee structure. Big companies
like Meta and Spotify seem unlikely to ever have used Apple’s new business terms
as proposed: they would go from paying Apple nothing under the current App Store
terms to paying Apple quite a bit—a scenario that Apple wins either way. While
those companies might want more control over the distribution and monetization
of their apps, they’re not going to do so at the literal expense of millions of
euros. Likewise, while small developers might find the new terms comparatively
more attractive, especially for types of apps that will never get approved by
Apple, the risk of “hitting it big” and triggering the CTF could likewise be too
high. And though Apple opened up the avenue for web distribution, the strictures
it put on place as to who is allowed to use the feature—such as a calendar year
threshold of one million downloads—certainly limits a lot of small developers.
While that last isn’t specifically mentioned by the EC, I have a hard time
imagining it’s not part of the overall investigation into the fee structure.

The real challenge for Apple will be in trying to figure out what changes it can
make in the near term to both avoid the heavy end of the EC’s hammer and dodge
further pitfalls along the way. Gee, sure is tough when your business is
entirely subject to the whims of a seemingly capricious organization who won’t
tell you exactly what rules you need to follow, isn’t it?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

BY JOHN MOLTZ

March 22, 2024 2:00 PM PT

■ THIS WEEK IN APPLE

THIS WEEK IN APPLE: THE BILL COMES DUE

Anything happen this week? First, let’s hop in a golf cart to ask some Apple
executives. Then we can read an 88-page PDF. We’ll finish by throwing our Apple
silicon Macs into the ocean.

AT LEAST AS EXCITING AS WATCHING GOLF ITSELF

Spring can be a time when you feel as though you’re going through Apple keynote
withdrawal. Fortunately, Brian Tong has you covered with this video ride-along
with a number of Apple executives you may recognize. There’s Joz and Kaiann and
Anand and so many more! It’s got more stars than a 1979 ABC “Still The One!”
promo.

No one lets the beans spill on future products or features, but they do ride
around and around the Apple campus a lot and wax poetic about the company’s
products. You’ll hear about cameras and spatial memories and just all the
awesomeness that’s going on at Apple Park and how awesome it is.…

THIS IS A POST LIMITED TO SIX COLORS MEMBERS.

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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

SPONSOR

March 22, 2024 9:00 AM PT

MAGIC LASSO ADBLOCK: YOUTUBE AD BLOCKER FOR SAFARI ↦

My thanks to Magic Lasso Adblock for sponsoring Six Colors this week.

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BY DAN MOREN

March 21, 2024 12:35 PM PT

APPLE’S M-SERIES PROCESSORS HAVE A CRYPTOGRAPHIC FLAW

Ars Technica’s Dan Goodin has an excellent (if technical) rundown of a recently
unearthed security vulnerability in Apple’s M-series processors. Basically
there’s a system that tries to predict what memory addresses are going to be
used in order to speed up processing, but Apple’s version can accidentally leak
data:

> The attack, which the researchers have named GoFetch, uses an application that
> doesn’t require root access, only the same user privileges needed by most
> third-party applications installed on a macOS system. M-series chips are
> divided into what are known as clusters. The M1, for example, has two
> clusters: one containing four efficiency cores and the other four performance
> cores. As long as the GoFetch app and the targeted cryptography app are
> running on the same performance cluster—even when on separate cores within
> that cluster—GoFetch can mine enough secrets to leak a secret key.

This particularly affects M1 and M2 series chips, with the M3 providing an
option to disable the predictive system—albeit likely with a performance hit
during cryptographic operations. Because the system is implemented in hardware,
it can’t be patched by Apple—rather, apps that are performing cryptography would
have to add additional layers of security in order to protect against it.

While the researchers only demonstrated the flaw on four different encryption
algorithms, that’s enough to suggest that other cryptography is likely affected
as well.

Ultimately, it may be up to Apple to mitigate this functionality for its M1 and
M2 chips in software, though the company has not yet publicly commented on the
flaw.

—LINKED BY DAN MOREN

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

BY JASON SNELL

March 21, 2024 10:12 AM PT

■ UNDER THE GAVEL

U.S. VERSUS APPLE: A FIRST REACTION

The U.S. Department of Justice, 15 states, and the District of Columbia sued
Apple on Thursday. While I am not a lawyer, I’ve written extensively about Apple
for 30 years and just read all 88 pages of the full complaint. Here are some
initial reactions:

Defining a “monopoly.” Before we get to some of the details of Apple’s specific
anti-competitive behavior, it’s worth noting that this suit is charging Apple
with violations of the Sherman antitrust act, which is meant to specifically
regulate monopolies. Things that are legal for regular companies to do become
illegal when monopolies do them.

Part of this document, then, has to establish that Apple holds monopoly power
over a specific market. Given that Apple’s share of the U.S. smartphone market
is about 60 percent, how can it be called a monopoly? The DoJ attempts to square
this circle in a few different ways:

* It uses revenue instead of unit sales, pointing out that Apple and Samsung
combined hold 90 percent of the U.S. smartphone market by revenue.

* It creates a new sub-market, the “Performance Smartphone,” which pushes Apple
up to about 70 percent of the market in terms of unit sales.

* It accuses Apple of attempting to create a monopoly through its various
business tactics, which is also illegal.

Questions I would ask about this approach: Can you add in Samsung, find a number
starting in ninety, and declare something a monopoly? Is revenue share how
monopolies are defined? Can you draw borders on a product category in a
beneficial way in order to declare it a new market?

Apple’s position in the U.S. market is certainly strong, but regardless of how
you view its behavior, it will be interesting to see if the DoJ can make a
convincing case that Apple is actually a monopoly, given the presence of Samsung
and Google in the market.

Suppressing cross-platform technologies is key. One of the DoJ’s primary
arguments is that Apple has reduced competition by making it hard for developers
to deploy cross-platform software—in other words, software that works the same
on both iOS and Android. This, in turn, makes it harder for iPhone users to
switch to Android, which reduces competition.

Among the examples it cites:

* “Super apps,” which provide multiple kinds of functionality and mini-apps
within a single app container, written in HTML and JavaScript. WeChat is
never named, but its ubiquity in China is alluded to, and the argument is
that it’s a reason that Chinese users can switch phone platforms more easily.

* Cloud streaming games, which make the power of smartphone hardware less
relevant, thereby freeing consumers to buy cheaper, low-powered phones and
still play games.

* Messaging apps not being able to have access to incoming SMS messages. (Yep,
I was surprised too.) The argument is that because incoming text messages
come to the Messages app, Apple is feeding users into its own chat app
ecosystem and putting other messaging apps at a disadvantage.

* Smartwatches, specifically access to the iPhone for non-Apple smartwatches.
The DoJ says that by not allowing third-party watches access to messages and
the ability to maintain consistent connections to the iPhone, Apple is
suppressing competition in the smartwatch market and making it harder to
switch. In theory, if you could buy a competitor to the Apple Watch and use
it on the iPhone, you could then later switch to Android without a penalty.

* Digital wallets. By controlling the iPhone’s digital wallet tech, the suit
alleges, Apple has increased “friction” in moving to a different smartphone
platform, and denied users access to alternative wallets provided by their
banks.

Apple’s total control is an issue. It’ll be familiar to anyone who has been
following Apple’s adventures in Europe with the Digital Markets act, but another
argument here is that Apple exerts its power over its platform to limit
developers and users. This comes in numerous forms, including capricious and
self-serving App Store policies and the failure to offer third-party access to
APIs that Apple itself uses in its apps.

Apple’s only concerned about user security when it’s convenient. The document
alleges that Apple talks a good game when it comes to privacy and security, but
that it favors them when it’s convenient and not when it’s not. It calls Apple’s
privacy and security justifications an “elastic shield that can stretch or
contract” to serve Apple’s interests. The examples in the document include
continuing to rely on the insecure SMS protocol for cross-platform texts and
letting Google be the default search engine when more private options are
available.

Lock-in will be on trial. Many of the DoJ arguments come down to this: Every
feature that Apple builds that makes it harder to switch to an Android phone is
fundamentally anticompetitive. It’s clear that the DoJ envisions a competitive
smartphone market—or, if that doesn’t work, performance smartphone market—as one
in which there’s as little friction as possible when jumping between platforms.

This would mean Apple offering third-party app access to features it currently
keeps for itself. (One could argue that Apple’s behavior has already begun to
change due to pressure, as it launched its new Journal app alongside an API that
gives other apps access to the same data as its own app.) It also suggests that
policies against game streaming and web apps would also come under scrutiny.

The DoJ congratulates itself. For me, the most unexpected part of the document
was the DoJ’s explanation that Apple’s success as a company largely stems from…
the DoJ itself. It points out that Apple’s resurgence early in this century was
due to the release of the iPod, which only became a hit when it arrived on
Windows. The DoJ argues that the iPod’s presence on Windows was only due to
Microsoft being under a consent decree from the DoJ for monopolistic behavior.

I don’t know enough about the specifics of the Microsoft consent decree to weigh
in on the idea that an unconstrained Microsoft would have made it impossible for
Apple to make the iPod compatible with Windows. It’s a pretty big hypothetical,
and I’m skeptical, but I’m impressed that the DoJ would try to place its current
case within the larger DoJ Connected Universe.

A few howlers. Some arguments in the document seem silly. A section describes
how Apple will use its sinister market powers to dominate the automotive
industry by… inflicting CarPlay 2.0 on users? Not only is Apple struggling to
get CarPlay into cars by major American manufacturers, but I’m not sure how
better integrating our phones (which we love) into our car infotainment systems
(which we frequently do not love) is some sort of tragic outcome. (Update: Nilay
Patel of the Verge suggests the implication is that Apple won’t let carmakers
support CarPlay in the future unless they let Apple take over the entire auto
interface. That would certainly be a power move, but the DOJ will need to prove
that for it to become more than another scary story told around a campfire.)

And then there’s the danger of Apple, tech giant, affecting “the flow of
speech.” How, you might ask? The answer is Apple TV+, where Apple has committed
the grave sin of “control[ling] content.” Be right back, gotta find some pearls
to clutch.

United States v. The People of the United States. What strikes me most about
this document is that people… like using the iPhone? This suit (joined by 16
other attorneys general, mostly of blue states) has a political element to it,
in the sense of trying to send a message that your government is looking out for
your rights and protecting you from big, bad tech companies.

What happens when that collides with a product that has extremely high customer
satisfaction ratings? Those of us in the know are well aware of all the ways
that Apple plays hardball, and understand that the company is so powerful that
really the only way it will be convinced to change its ways is under threat of
government intervention. But will American iPhone users feel like the government
is on their side, in taking on an American tech giant that makes a product they
actually enjoy using?

I doubt most regular people will get into the weeds with this stuff, but some of
the depictions in the lawsuit really are topsy-turvy. Imagine trying to sell
regular people on the idea that they’d be better off with a bunch of different
banking apps implementing NFC payments in random ways, rather than using the
Wallet system Apple built. No doubts the banks disliked it, and they certainly
despise that Apple skims some money off of every transaction, but there’s no
denying that Apple’s approach actually did favor the user… and that Apple used
its power (or “monopoly power,” if you’re the DoJ) to force the banks to play
ball.

This one issue seems like a microcosm of the entire case: Apple undoubtedly has
huge market power, owing to its success in the market. Apple uses that power to
make decisions that frequently benefit its users and enrich itself. (Sometimes
it’s one or the other, but usually it’s some degree of both.) Is it illegal for
Apple to use its power to improve the user experience? What about when it cuts
itself in for some sweet Services revenue along the way? How do we tell the
difference between real user benefit and phony benefit that’s really designed to
allow Apple to exert its power and increase its profits?

It’s complicated. There’s some danger that Apple will no longer be able to make
judgments that favor users, and that will degrade the user experience. But this
is the same company that acts as if buying things on the Internet with a credit
card is the height of dangerous behavior, when in fact it’s commonplace and
safe. By mixing exertions of its control and power with notions of user benefit,
it risks losing all of it.

What’s next? Again, not a lawyer. What I’ve learned in observing three decades
of government interaction with tech is that the most likely outcome is one that
doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. I could create a list of Apple behaviors that
I consider to be anticompetitive and unfriendly to consumers, but many of them
are barely touched on in this document.

So my prediction is that this will be a long, drawn-out process that will end up
with Apple changing some of its policies. Some of those changes will be
substantial and will alter how the company operates; others will be pointless
and cause no appreciable effect; and still others will degrade the experience of
iPhone users without increasing competition. Meanwhile, other Apple policies
that stifle competition, degrade the user experience, and cost users money will
just go on as usual, unchanged and unchallenged.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

BY JASON SNELL

March 20, 2024 3:08 PM PT

MLB APP WILL SLOW ITSELF DOWN, LET YOUR MEDIA STREAM CATCH UP

When I wrote about Apple’s new Sports app, I heard from several people who
pointed out that maybe Eddy Cue had done his job a little too well. Apple’s SVP
of Services told me that he was prioritizing speed, right down to measuring the
lag between the scoreboard at the Warriors game he was attending and the current
score in the Sports app.

The problem with that lag is that while radio and TV broadcasts are often a
fraction of a second behind live action, streaming radio and TV broadcasts tend
to be far, far behind the action. So far behind that Apple Sports was indicating
made baskets in NBA games while the team was still coming up the floor with the
ball. (I experienced this myself when a friend texted me to give condolences
about the Super Bowl about 30 seconds before Kansas City scored in overtime to
win it.)

Streaming lag is real. So real, in fact, that I just discovered a new setting in
the Major League Baseball app that I had never seen before. Under Notifications,
there’s a setting for Delayed Gameday Notifications. “Turning this on will delay
live Gameday notifications by 30 Sec.,” reads the legend under the setting.

This is hilarious, and absolutely necessary. Many times, I’ve had game audio
playing for an MLB game, only to notice that the Gameday play-by-play was way
ahead of the action. It’s… not great!

In the long run, it would be nice if MLB could use some more advanced
technologies to ensure that its data feeds and media feeds were running at the
same pace—maybe take a page from what Apple’s doing with podcast transcripts?
But offering to delay the data by 30 seconds so that the media stream can catch
up is a great first step.

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CLOCKWISE 546: TACO IPAD

How we search online, our tips for minimizing vehicle data tracking, the GenAI
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want to see in a future iPad.

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THE REBOUND 487: HAVE YOU TRIED NOT GOING VIRAL

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BY JOE ROSENSTEEL

March 20, 2024 9:35 AM PT

IT’S TIME FOR A NEW AIRPORT

Jason recently reviewed the new M3 MacBook Air, and a key feature of the new
models is Wi-Fi 6E support. Wi-Fi 6E is a big deal because it adds the 6GHz
spectrum to the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands we’re all used to.

> The M3 Air also adds support for Wi-Fi 6E, while the older M2 models only
> support Wi-Fi 6. The difference is real. On my home Internet connection, I was
> able to get 931 Mbps down and 813 MBps up via Wi-Fi, which is more or less the
> same speed as my wired connection to my router. In the same spot, my M2 Air
> could only manage 618 up and 700 down. I wouldn’t buy a new laptop just to
> have faster Wi-Fi—and keep in mind that you need to upgrade your router and
> possibly your home internet to take advantage of these speeds—but that’s the
> fastest Wi-Fi connection I’ve ever experienced.

Jason didn’t get that speed boost from an Apple-made wireless router, because
Apple got out of making those long ago. He didn’t get that speed from a wireless
router currently for sale at the Apple Store because the only two options are
the Linksys Velop AX4200 WiFi 6 Mesh System, and AmpliFi Alien Router (with
optional mesh extenders). Linksys does make a version of their Velop mesh
network with 6E, but it’s not for sale through Apple.

Jason used an Eero 6E router, and wasted half a day trying to change his network
topology to allow for it so he could see that speed difference.

It seems like a great time for Apple to sell a friendly 6E router.

Apple was the catalyst for consumer wireless internet with AirPort, but after a
decade-plus of glory, they wound down AirPort and it quietly disappeared. Not
with a bang, but with a whimper. The last new AirPort product was released in
2013. The AirPort team dispersed to other teams in Apple, like the group working
on the 4th generation Apple TV in 2016. In 2018, the death was official. Having
left an indelible mark on the wireless router industry in the form of plastic
roundrect routers and bespoke “friendly” utility software, Apple left the field.

The thinking at the time was that Apple wasn’t really competitive in the market,
just like they weren’t competitive in external displays, so why bother expending
resources on such a thing? Other companies had the market covered, and most home
Internet routers came with Wi-Fi, so why bother?

2 Let Apple reserve its magic dust for something other than commodity hardware
with thin margins.

I never agreed with that line of thinking, because networking underpins
everything that Apple does care about. Every Mac, iPad, Apple TV, HomePod,
Vision Pro, and most importantly every iPhone. The iPhone is a cellular device,
but when you’re at home, you’re on your Wi-Fi network. If your iPhone and your
wireless router aren’t playing well together than you are an unhappy person.

The performance, reliability, and ease of use of your home network really
matters a lot to you, and everyone you share your home with, along with all of
their devices. Just start counting everything in your home that’s on your Wi-Fi
network right now.

When my AirPort Extreme died in 2019, I needed to replace it, and I didn’t need
a mesh network, so I went with a terrible Wirecutter pick, the Netgear Nighthawk
R7000, which would just periodically stop being on the internet until I
hard-rebooted it. The Nighthawk’s design wasn’t from the Apple-aping school of
rounded corners—it was presumably made by and for men who were Very Serious
About The Internet, which is why it looked like something you might find in the
Batcave.

When I moved to a home that needed a mesh solution, I was again disappointed in
a product: the Eero, which occasionally has undiagnosable flaky moments, and
always bumps one of my smart plugs off the network when it restarts after a
software update.

WE ALL LOVE AIRPORT SECURITY

Let’s not forget about how your router figures into your security and privacy,
which are both things Apple cares about. To get around sketchy networking, Apple
has added iCloud Private Relay to operate on any network inside and outside your
home. However, sometimes iCloud Private Relay doesn’t get along with a network,
or a service. You have no recourse but to toggle it off, and see if the site
works. Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a blessed Apple router in your home that
iCloud Private Relay would always play nice with?

Apple also obfuscates your devices on a network, which is a great feature on
untrusted networks. However, when I am at home, it sometimes decides to play
Cold War spy games with my Eero router. Occasionally a handful of devices will
simply be “Unnamed Device” and I have no idea what each one is. What if an
Apple-blessed router could be consistently entrusted with my device names?

While I don’t have any little tweens getting into trouble online, I know that
parental controls are a big deal for some people, and they have to set those
parental controls on Apple IDs and on routers, and etc. What if that was
unified?

HOME IS WHERE THE HUB IS

Putting aside the absolute mess of the software side of Home, let’s discuss the
networking side of Home. Apple leans heavily on Apple TVs and HomePods to
provide the networking backbone for all the connected smart home devices you
have.

I’m not sure that’s a useful strategy because when there are issues with your
home network, the device designated as your Home Hub loses the game of musical
chairs, and a device you do not want to be Home Hub is selected. You want a
device that has robust connectivity, which is usually the most modern Apple TV
you have (except the $129 one they’re selling without a Thread radio, and
without Ethernet).

The device that has the most robust connectivity in my home is my Eero wired to
my fiber connection, and its affiliated Eeros. Eero’s Thread network is not
compatible with Apple’s approach to Thread, which is just great. Some day Matter
might deliver on its promise, but I’m not holding my breath.

What if Apple shipped mesh network devices? Devices that could be the backbone
for a Home initiative that Apple allegedly cares about?

BRING BACK SPINNING DISKS!

I’m just kidding about enthusiasm for spinning disks, but one of the strengths
of Apple’s AirPort line was that you could shove Time Machine backups somewhere
that wasn’t wired to your Mac. Time Capsule was a slow hard drive crammed into
the white plastic of your internet router. There was also an option to hook up
an external drive to your AirPort Extreme over the USB cable. It was a good
idea, because it took something hanging off of your Mac and moved it somewhere
else where it could be quiet. Also not everyone wants to build and maintain a
NAS.

Yes, backing up a Mac via Wi-Fi back then was slower than doing it over a wire,
but wireless networking was also slower back then. I would be interested to see
what Apple could do with a 6E router. Surely it’ll never be blistering speeds,
but it could be a quiet, competent solution.

And just think of how much they could charge for that embedded solid-state
storage! They’re leaving money on the table! Bleed us dry, Tim! Sell a line of
them: AirPort Express mesh nodes, AirPort Extreme with ports, AirPort Ultra with
Time Capsule (just skip the titanium finish).

STEP 4: PROFIT

I know that it’s still easy to argue that Apple doesn’t need to make wireless
routers. They won’t make enough money to make it worth the effort. Whatever
“enough money” means is so flexible when you think about all the various things
Apple does make. Those networking boffins are better allocated to other
products, rather than making commodity hardware.

The return of Apple to the monitor market illustrates how effective Apple’s
integration can be when it comes to supposedly superfluous product categories,
especially when those products complement or support the products Apple already
makes lots of money on… like the Macs it sells that use those displays. It’s
called synergy, people.

Designing networking solutions in every device to work around the one component
Apple doesn’t want to make is a lot of effort. The R&D can’t cost more than a
self-driving, bread-loaf saloon, and the benefits of an Apple wireless router
will lift all of Apple’s products. It’s time to head back to the AirPort

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1. [Thanks for generating more content out of this expensive and time consuming
purchase, Joe.—Jason] ↩
2. [I edited this piece minutes after installing an Eero router at my mom’s
house, because her ISP-supplied router provides slow, unreliable
Wi-Fi.—Jason] ↩
3. Oh, the irony of someone near LAX saying that… ↩

[Joe Rosensteel is a VFX artist, writer, and co-host of the Defocused and
Unhelpful Suggestions podcasts.]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

BY DAN MOREN FOR MACWORLD

March 20, 2024 8:40 AM PT

AI IS COMING TO THE IPHONE–AND IT COULD CHANGE EVERYTHING

After years of the market complaining that Apple is “behind” on artificial
intelligence, the company is poised to make a big push in the technology with
its platform updates this year. In a rare move, that’s been confirmed by no less
than CEO Tim Cook himself, who said in the company’s most recent financial
results call that the company would “share the details of our ongoing work in
that space later this year.”

Of course, the company’s not really a stranger to this space: Apple has spent
plenty of time deploying machine learning technology in a variety of areas for
years, from photography to autocorrect. But the industry’s focus of late is on
generative AI, the technology that underlies the products that have captured the
zeitgeist, from chatbots like ChatGPT to image creation tools like Dall-E and
Stable Diffusion.

The big question that hovers over all of this is how Apple will bring those
technologies into its existing operating systems, what choices it will make in
rolling them out. The company tends to be on the judicious side when it comes to
deploying new features, but there are still plenty of places on its platforms
where generative AI—contentious as it may be—might find a foothold with users.

Continue reading on Macworld ↦

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